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Techniques To Make Non-Alcoholic Beer

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After reading some information from a non-alcoholic brewery - I believe it was Surreal Brewing - about how they made their beverages by following traditional brewing techniques to achieve 0.5% ABV, I decided to try something similar. The basic process is that I always use wheat malt as my base for body, I target an OG of 1.010 to 1.015 to restrict ABV, and I mash hot (165F for 60 minutes) to lower attenuation. Outside of that, I follow typical brewing processes.

Based on the batches I have made so far, trends I've noticed are:
  • My efficiency takes about a 10% hit compared to my standard beer brewing (75% vs 85%)
  • I use about 2 lb of grain in a 5 gallon batch to hit my target OG
  • Attenuation stays in the 40-45% range across various yeasts
  • Sulfur is prominent for the first 2 weeks of bottle conditioning but dissipates by the end of the third week
  • For hoppy styles, 25 IBUs is pleasant while anything above 30 IBUs becomes harsh
  • Also for hoppy styles, flameout and dry hop amounts of 4+ oz each in 5 gallons is needed to achieve noticeable hop aroma and flavor
My next steps are to continue working on achieving more hop aroma and flavor in hop forward beers and then to start work on darker styles. To date, I have only made lagers and pale ales. While I wouldn't say that what I have brewed using this process has completely met my expectations, my latest iterations are very enjoyable to drink and certainly taste like beer.
 
After reading some information from a non-alcoholic brewery - I believe it was Surreal Brewing - about how they made their beverages by following traditional brewing techniques to achieve 0.5% ABV, I decided to try something similar. The basic process is that I always use wheat malt as my base for body, I target an OG of 1.010 to 1.015 to restrict ABV, and I mash hot (165F for 60 minutes) to lower attenuation. Outside of that, I follow typical brewing processes.

Based on the batches I have made so far, trends I've noticed are:
  • My efficiency takes about a 10% hit compared to my standard beer brewing (75% vs 85%)
  • I use about 2 lb of grain in a 5 gallon batch to hit my target OG
  • Attenuation stays in the 40-45% range across various yeasts
  • Sulfur is prominent for the first 2 weeks of bottle conditioning but dissipates by the end of the third week
  • For hoppy styles, 25 IBUs is pleasant while anything above 30 IBUs becomes harsh
  • Also for hoppy styles, flameout and dry hop amounts of 4+ oz each in 5 gallons is needed to achieve noticeable hop aroma and flavor
My next steps are to continue working on achieving more hop aroma and flavor in hop forward beers and then to start work on darker styles. To date, I have only made lagers and pale ales. While I wouldn't say that what I have brewed using this process has completely met my expectations, my latest iterations are very enjoyable to drink and certainly taste like beer.

Considering taking a stab at this--have you had any more realizations the more you've been testing these methods? It seems remarkably simple...
 
After reading some information from a non-alcoholic brewery - I believe it was Surreal Brewing - about how they made their beverages by following traditional brewing techniques to achieve 0.5% ABV, I decided to try something similar. The basic process is that I always use wheat malt as my base for body, I target an OG of 1.010 to 1.015 to restrict ABV, and I mash hot (165F for 60 minutes) to lower attenuation. Outside of that, I follow typical brewing processes.

Based on the batches I have made so far, trends I've noticed are:
  • My efficiency takes about a 10% hit compared to my standard beer brewing (75% vs 85%)
  • I use about 2 lb of grain in a 5 gallon batch to hit my target OG
  • Attenuation stays in the 40-45% range across various yeasts
  • Sulfur is prominent for the first 2 weeks of bottle conditioning but dissipates by the end of the third week
  • For hoppy styles, 25 IBUs is pleasant while anything above 30 IBUs becomes harsh
  • Also for hoppy styles, flameout and dry hop amounts of 4+ oz each in 5 gallons is needed to achieve noticeable hop aroma and flavor
My next steps are to continue working on achieving more hop aroma and flavor in hop forward beers and then to start work on darker styles. To date, I have only made lagers and pale ales. While I wouldn't say that what I have brewed using this process has completely met my expectations, my latest iterations are very enjoyable to drink and certainly taste like beer.
You could try the above with REALLY hot mashing at 185F and using Windsor or London yeast. Techniques To Make Non-Alcoholic Beer

It does work and might be really good in conjunction with your technique.
 
What about this process for NA?

- mash beer as you normally would
- sparge as you normally would
- boil for 5 minutes, with enough hop material to help keep things anti-microbial
- Ferment (almost non-hopped) wort
- After fermentation, cold crash wort to filter out suspended proteins (and if you can filter?)
- Transfer to kettle, and proceed to bring to boil, finish brew day as normal
- Boiling during this time should offgas (wrong word, I know) the alcohol during the 60m boil
- Cool wort and transfer to keg
- Cool to carb temps, then carb and serve

Its basically changing around the brewing process to utilize boiling to drive off the alcohol generated by the fermentation. Much of the profiles of the beer should exist and you can still dry hop if you want to (just no biotransformation)
 
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